Violence and (Geek) Entertainment

[Valetudo]

Watch the car chases in Ronin. Those are great car chase scenes.

 

[overgeeked]

I recently read one of the new Conan books, and was struck by something similar. Conan takes beating after beating, but in between each he miraculously heals. He starts each phase of the fight as fresh as a daisy.

It annoyed me, because one thing I enjoy about sword & sorcery is the grittiness. But then I realised that I'm probably not the intended audience. The book was written for kids (millennials and younger, I expect) who grew up on flashy video games and action movies that are all about over-the-top action and, as the OP notes, no real damage or danger.

What’s the difference though? A line of description saying Conan’s hurt? Describing the fight slightly differently based on Conan’s injuries. That’s all Robert E. Howard did in the originals. The original yarns had Conan survive the unsurvivable just about every story. Get up and fight long after he should have been dead. At worst his ribs hurt or he limped or an eye was swollen shut.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Given that IT is specifically about a bunch of kids who experience horrors, and then the same characters as adults, carrying that trauma, dealing with the same horror all over again?

And what’s the point of the story? Entertainment. It doesn’t really have anything to say about the real world. He just wants us to look at pain, suffering and trauma and be entertained by it. That seems pretty pornographic to me.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Fiction focuses on a telling a story

Which is the biggest unreality of all. The real world doesn’t fit into nice neat narratives where things happen for a reason. Barry goes for a walk and a tree falls on them. The end.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What’s the difference though? A line of description saying Conan’s hurt? Describing the fight slightly differently based on Conan’s injuries. That’s all Robert E. Howard did in the originals. The original yarns had Conan survive the unsurvivable just about every story. Get up and fight long after he should have been dead. At worst his ribs hurt or he limped or an eye was swollen shut.

And none of Conan’s injuries are ever life changing, which most of them should have been if we were being realistic. That is if he survived the infection in an age without antibiotics.

In the Hawkeye TV series Clint is dealing with the life changing injuries he has received through superheroing. Marvel is more realistic than Conan.

 

[Autumnal]

I’m not (yet) going to the extremes of some of my writer friends, reading wound manuals and the like, but I definitely prefer violence in my games to have consequences. Alongside that, I’ve become much more interested in adventures that have little to no violence. Give me a good chase scene, absolutely, but I just don’t want to play out a lot of violence in my games, particularly solo ones.

Like most generalizations, this isn’t absolute. There are times I strap on my grimdark and charge toward the grue. Then I am concerned to make the violence interesting and suitable.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I just watched Thunderbolts last week, and that movie's understanding of trauma is pretty solid, coming from someone with whom I viewed the film who has real experience with it.

A good superhero (and other genre movie/TV show) is all about the subtext. Thunderbolts isn’t about a bunch of underpowered heroes fighting an overpowered villain. It’s an allegory for depression, and shows traumatised people supporting each other.

The problem with Man of Steal was its subtext (hopefully unintentional) was that the lives of ordinary people don't matter, and whoever is strongest and most ruthless should decide their fate.

 

[MarkB]

The problem with Man of Steal was its subtext (hopefully unintentional) was that the lives of ordinary people don't matter, and whoever is strongest and most ruthless should decide their fate.

And the great thing in the 2025 Superman is that lives are the primary thing Superman is concerned about, with much of his effort being dedicated to ensuring that nobody is caught in the crossfire or collateral of battles - not even dogs or squirrels. The only way his battles don't have wider consequences is through his own constant struggle and vigilance.

That and Metropolis's supernaturally efficient evacuation plans, at least - but then again, this is the Metropolis of a lived-in comic-book world, they no doubt get a lot of practice.

 

[Cergorach]

It's a similar argument I heard Larry Hama make when he said the 80s GI Joe cartoon was "morally bankrupt" for depicting violence without anyone suffering from the natural consequences. For those who might not know, Hama wrote the 1980s GI Joe comic and most of the bios for the figures sold by Hasbro. The comic book was quite different from the cartoon and when the Joes or Cobra shot at someone they might actually injure or kill them.

Around here (Netherlands) the Dutch version of the comics and toys started in 1987 (I would have been 11), possibly a little earlier the cartoons via UK channels in saturday/sunday morning cartoons. At age 7-11 I really didn't need my cartoons besmirched with reality, thankyouverymuch! At the time we still were in a cold war, Europe was split in two (the wall was maybe 250 miles east from where I lived), etc.

Even the translated comics that came out were 'The Special Missions' series (not the mainline Marvel comics), a bit grittier then the cartoons. It was only later until I got my hands consistently on the American Marvel comics (around #100) in probably 1990-1991, at age 14-15 I could start to appreciate the more gritty comics. Heck #109 had on the cover "BODY COUNT: [7] AND CLIMBING!"...
As a child I did not need Kill Bill levels of violence in my entertainment/hobbies! Nor did I want or need it in my early days of pnp RPGs. Sure, we had some computer games with some very explicit gore, but they were NOT the norm, nor were these games our favorites.

Was G.I.Joe initially a story about describing the horror world of violence? No! It was Hasbro reactivating the G.I. Joe IP and brainstorming with Marvel to make toys for children, including an animation series... From Hasbro's perspective, it would always be about toy/cartoon violence, no matter what Larry Hama later thought or wanted. He worked for Marvel, and they sicked him onto Hasbro/G.I. Joe. And to be honest, I always saw the comic line and the toy/animation line as two separate universes that shared similar designs and organizations. I liked each at different times of my life.

I do remember watching an anime at one point when I was sick and home alone, one of the main characters committed suicide. I wept in grieve (which is very rare for me). That was an experience I could have done without at that age. And that's from someone who prefers fiction strongly over reality! When I watch a movie based on RL acts, I can get pretty angry with the world. I don't have to watch a movie/documentary about the concentration camps in WW2 for me to imagine those enough to make myself sick from the non-gory descriptions in the history books. I can also very well imagine what a fantasy sword would do to a fantasy person or monster in our shared fantasy world in particularly gory detail if I allow myself to. But why the heck would I want to?

Generally when we play D&D we don't play because we want to experience the horrors of violence. And depending on the story/setting, more or less horrors of violence is appropriate in our group. I remember back somewhere in the 3.5 age (2000-2008) I did an experiment of "At which point do the players tap out of my constantly escalating gore descriptions?", I ramped up quickly, and they quickly tapped out. When I bring that up now, ~20 years later, they don't remember that at all as something they balked at. It's either suppression of that memory (as it being to much) or has it become so normal, that it's not worth the memory?

Don't get me wrong, when I'm in the mood I'm perfectly comfortable to watch a fictional movie/animation with lots of gore/violence, and it's consequences. I can appreciate a 'good' action sequence just as much as I can appreciate a good story, but when the gory consequences don't do anything for the media/story, why have it at all? To be honest, I don't really watch the MCU movies for the stories, neither did I read the Marvel comics for the stories, it was for the illustrations/designs and the spectacle.

If my players want to murder helpless foes, I'm not going to sugar coat it so, when my nephew's cleric joined in the slaughter, I mentioned the mace caving in heads. My brother thought that was a bit much. I just shrugged -- he's the one one that encouraged this course of action, if he doesn't want his kids involved in this kind of violence, don't suggest that course of action.

Are you raising your nephew or is your brother raising his son?

You ignoring him is... Inappropriate at best, and a good reason for a parent to keep their kids away from you. It's not solely up to you to expose your players to your perspectives, but that assumes that your players have enough agency/age to make their limits clear to you. A young nephew that is still a child does not, and that's why we have parents.

And there's gore (as you described it) and consequence, what happens in a world when you kill someone. You could easily get one without the other.

 

[MGibster]

As a child I did not need Kill Bill levels of violence in my entertainment/hobbies! Nor did I want or need it in my early days of pnp RPGs. Sure, we had some computer games with some very explicit gore, but they were NOT the norm, nor were these games our favorites.

I think there might be a happy medium between Kill Bill levels of violence and something more appropriate for children. Like I said in my first post, I'm a reasonable person, so I don't think it'd be appropriate for a program aimed at young children to feature graphic violence. But the GI Joe cartoon featured characters shooting at one another, firing missiles, blowing vehicles and buildings to smithereens, and the animators took great pains to makes sure the audience knew nobody got hurt. That strikes me as wrong.

He worked for Marvel, and they sicked him onto Hasbro/G.I. Joe. And to be honest, I always saw the comic line and the toy/animation line as two separate universes that shared similar designs and organizations. I liked each at different times of my life.

That's actually fairly common with licensed material. For Masters of the Universe figures, each one came with a little comic book because American children need lore to help get them excited to play the game, and it was quite different from the more popular cartoon. In the comic, He-Man didn't have the Prince Adam alter ego, he was from a jungle tribe rather than a member of the royal family, his primary weapon was an axe, the stories were more complex, and the art was darker. Like GI Joe, the comic and the cartoon was produced by completely different teams whose schedules didn't permit them to consult one another.